Ever since the air started to cool, and the first leaves began to drop quietly from the trees, I’ve had the strong urge to catch up on everything and get it all back in order.
It’s not an unknown feeling — it’s actually a quite common autumn feeling for me, especially after a summer full of responsibilities.
the common sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) in the meadow has been stunning this year — I can’t wait to see it continue to spread!
Earlier this year I wrote about how much work we were doing on our two acres of land to turn it into a native wildlife habitat.
Unfortunately I haven’t been much help lately, largely due to the infamous back injury, but also due to the fact that I cannot comprehend how Mom and Riley have been working through the hottest, buggiest, most humid days of the year.
I got burnt out doing a lot of deep, grueling poison ivy work early in the year, and I found that I much prefer doing jobs like building stonewalls and building dead hedges.
new magical spot unlocked 🔓✨
I’m the kind of person who has the audacity to simply do what I want.
Have I ever built a stonewall before?
No.
Was I confident that I could do so?
Yes.
(and yes, this project happened before the infamous back injury)
we love our little stonewall, and we also love the baby shagbark hickory tree (Carya ovata) that’s growing just behind it 🌳
April and May have been a blur of flowers, birds, hard work, and poison ivy.
As mentioned in a previous post, we’ve been doing some pretty extreme work on our property, so here’s a collection of photos from the last two months.
Mom finally brought the poetry magnets back out, so our fridge is currently full of them
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Living in New England, I think that March might be the most dramatic month of the whole year.
On the third of March we went “hiking” and ended up clumsily tripping through three feet of snow, but by the end of the month the ground was clear, and flowers were blooming.
You can watch my 60-second March wrap here!
March 3rd, we definitely underestimated how much snow would still be at our local park; watch my spring vlog here!
I can’t believe that January is already over. I know it drags on endlessly for a lot of people (and I’m often one of those people), but it really seems like it was here and gone this year.
And not only did I succeed in making all twelve monthly wraps last year (you can find the whole playlist of them here), I started all over again for 2026. It’s too much fun to watch the changing year through them all!
I’m happy to report that winter has been very wintery here in New England. Multiple winter storms have arrived, and the last storm we got (Storm Fern) dropped a good 16″ inches on top of us. We now have snow-blown paths winding through the yard leading to all of our important destinations (the barn, the wood shed, the compost, the birdfeeders…).
Usually while I eat breakfast I like to scroll through the daily news articles, because there’s always something interesting mixed into the boring stuff. A new fossil discovered? An octopus that’s been recorded punching fish? Red carpet photos from an award show that I didn’t know was going on? All good things to read, look at, watch, and (when it comes to fashion) judge while I eat my homemade sourdough bread, and start my day.
But lately almost every article has been political, with a certain orange-faced idiot and his moronic toadies plastered across all the news story.
As expected, it’s all been not only depressing and scary (exciting news: it’s almost time to try to enroll in healthcare that I’ll probably be denied! 🥂), it’s also been so blatantly and disgustingly hypocritical that it just about makes my blood boil.
As you can imagine: not a great way to start my day. So I decided to take a little break from the daily onslaught of terrible news, and take that time to get back to my Pinterest scrolling instead. After all, tis the season for new inspiration and creativity 🍂
No one can stop me from getting excited about making Christmas ornaments.
my Pinterest feed has been full of vintage-autumn photography vibes, and when I saw the yellow maple leaves falling, I knew I had to get out for a morning photoshoot
July has come and gone (if you missed my July wrap, you can watch it here!), and we are well and truly into summer. As in, it’s frickin hot, and I don’t remember the last time we got rain. I’m giving my gardens just enough water to make it through these hot days, but they could really use a good soaker.
The pole beans are finally producing (I always forget how late they start, but once they start, the harvests are plentiful until the first frost), the butternut squashes are climbing to the sky and have quite the collection of babies growing, and the zephyr squashes have been as delectable as ever.
my friend Brandi sent me these marigold seeds (left) a few years ago, and I’ve continued collecting the seeds and growing them every year since!
